in the end, everybody bleeds the same
by Jedi Buttercup
Summary: This life was either going to ruin Luna- or season him into someone like Boss. For his sake, Dahl hoped it was the latter.


**Title**: in the end, everybody bleeds the same

**Author**: Jedi Buttercup

**Rating**: T

**Disclaimer**: The words are mine; the 'verse is not.

**Summary**: _This life was either going to ruin Luna- or season him into someone like Boss. For his sake, Dahl hoped it was the latter._ 2400 words.

**Spoilers**: Riddick (2013)

**Notes**: Originally posted to LJ and AO3 on Sept 18. Set after the movie, but before "it ain't the fall that gets you." Dahl insisted on addressing a few more things the movie skimmed over. (Do I need to warn for discussion of offensive things that actually happened on screen?)

* * *

Dahl could still feel eyes on her back. She wasn't sure she'd ever be fully rid of the feeling, not after the hell she'd lived through, but this was a little more immediate than ghosts and monsters. She sighed, then looked up from scrubbing down the medbunk to meet the rookie's eyes across the skiff's narrow corridor. Riddick was gone; what the hell was he still hanging around for?

"You okay there, kid?" she asked, gruffly.

Luna looked... troubled, one hand splayed over the Bible he kept tucked in his vest pocket. The kid really was in the wrong business. Dahl couldn't imagine how Santana had got his hooks in him in the first place; surely the merc captain hadn't actually advertised for a 'good luck charm'? Maybe it had been luck of the draw, the only ship with an open berth? Shitty luck, if so.

"Didn't it... bother you?" he asked hesitantly, staring at the streaks of blood and grime still visible at the foot of the bunk. "Helping him. Riddick. After all the people he killed."

Dahl let the corner of her mouth curl up, and shrugged. "Just like sewing up any other idiot. Well, maybe not _any_ idiot; most guys wouldn't have been dumb enough to try cauterizing their wounds with a hot rock before I could get to them."

Not that it seemed to have held Riddick back much; given all the scarring she'd seen after she finally got his leather vest off, some of it pretty damn recent, she'd have expected _some_ kind of infection, malnutrition, whatever. She hadn't seen many veggies on that world. But the medbunk's sensors had tagged him as healthy as a horse, except for the charred hole in his chest and the chemical byproducts of horse tranq in his system. Maybe there _was_ something to all that warrior race bullshit after all; Johns had told her about the 'Furya' he'd seen etched in the cave where Riddick had stashed Falco.

Luna didn't seem reassured by her flip answer. He had to be something like fifteen centimeters taller than she was, but the way his shoulders were slumped, she could easily look him in the eye. "Does this kind of thing happen often? I mean, whole teams getting wiped out chasing bounties? The woman we picked up before we came here- that was my first one."

First woman? Dahl wondered cynically. Or first bounty? Possibly both, the way he was still fingering that Bible.

"Now and again, yeah. Though I will admit- Riddick's record is bloodier than most. He likes to go to ground for years at a time, but whenever he pops up again, one or more of the guilds ends up updating their retirement lists. Not that anyone'll shed a tear over Santana." His clan had lost six this time; the Lupus Guild, two. And monster bait or not, all eight were likely to end up on Riddick's rap sheet.

Now that was a strange thought: that, say, Moss' sister was about to get the same message Boss had ten years ago, and maybe spawn another crusade against a man who hadn't actually done the deed. Dahl didn't doubt Riddick had done plenty, but it was hard to see the psychopath of merc legend in the guy who loved his dog, sparred with words as much as weapons, and took vicious pride in keeping his word. Dahl knew a little something about being tried in the court of public opinion, and being vilified for having the strength to defend her choices. One would think humanity might have finally shaken off old prejudices so many centuries after leaving the homeworld, but spreading out across space had only driven their divisions deeper, rather than smoothing them over. She couldn't endorse Riddick's methods, but at the same time... there were some people who just _really_ needed killing.

"What's... uh. What's going to happen to me, then?" Luna swallowed, nervously. "If the clan... I just joined up, but my crew's dead, and our ship's gone, and I don't even have the bounty we collected before we came here. Am I gonna be liable for all of that?"

Dahl sighed and picked up the sanitizer again to finish the scrub-down. Who'd died and made her his new big sister? Right; dumb question. "Don't worry about it. You weren't the shot-caller, and you weren't responsible for what happened. Boss'll square it with your guild; you're one of ours now, if you want to be." She raised an eyebrow at him.

"Oh! That's... that's great." Luna seemed to relax a little, but his smile was pretty wan; he still wasn't all that enthused. If it wasn't about Riddick, or the loss of his crew, what else was on his mind?

"Something else bothering you?" she frowned, eyeing that Bible again, and the little hammered silver cross riding his shoulder strap. Apart from all the angel-invoking, he'd been refreshingly non-abrasive company during the long, tense wait for Boss to return with the nodes; she hadn't thought he had a personal problem with her, but maybe that was down to the fact that he hadn't been in her chain of command at the time. "What, you got a problem with taking orders from the likes of me?"

"What?" He blinked, then looked down to where his hand clasped the embossed cover of the book and honest to god _blushed_ right there in front of her. "Oh. Oh! No; my uncle's a universalist preacher, an inclusionist. 'Whosoever loveth is born of God', and all that. It's not my place to judge."

Dahl stared, hardly able to believe he'd said that with a straight face. This life was either going to ruin him- or season him into someone like Boss. For his sake, she hoped it was the latter. "Well, if you want to call it _love_," she drawled after a moment, lips curving in a smirk, then winked at him before turning her full attention to stowing the bunk.

He was still endearingly red in the face when she finished throwing the locking clasps and powering down the hardware, but he hadn't left yet, either. "Out with it," she prodded, exasperated. "If it isn't that, then what the fuck _is_ your problem?"

He hesitated, fidgeting with the buckles of his gear, then took a deep breath and finally spilled. "When your boss punched Riddick... when he was asking him all those questions... your guy Moss asked him if you were beating men in chains now. Does that mean... your crew doesn't usually...?"

Ah; so it was _that_ kind of crisis of faith. Wondering about the stains on his own hands, not those of others; Dahl wouldn't be much help to him there. She didn't _do_ motherly, and god knew she had enough stains of her own. But better her than Johns, who was probably either still getting rid of Riddick or stewing in his own gut up in the cockpit, neither of which would put him in a generous mood. And even Dahl would probably seem like one of those angels of his, compared to Santana.

"Nah. Riddick was personal; and Boss was still gentler than I would've been. But even if we'd got there first, we'd have turned him over for bounty still breathing. You may have noticed that we carry a lot of non-lethals." She had no trouble shooting scum that shot back, or fucking up a guy who deserved it, but murdering a man in chains like that? She'd seen the look on Johns' face when Santana had lifted his sword, conflicted despite his fury, and she'd been about to do something really stupid before the Cyclops sounded the alarm and distracted them all. That shit just wasn't right.

"The Lupus Guild likes to say we're in the law and order business, and Boss really does take it seriously. He'll read you the regs before we go out again; there's lines we just don't cross."

Luna bit his lip, looking guiltier than ever. "I thought... when I signed up, I thought all mercs must be like Santana. That I was just going to have to turn a blind eye to it, mitigate it as much as I could, until I made enough to charter my own ship. But that woman... the one we caught before Riddick..."

He didn't seem able to finish the story; but then, he didn't have to. The rest was easy enough to predict. Dahl's lips thinned, and she crossed her arms over her chest, leaning against the wall opposite him. "Let me guess. He raped her. Passed her around the crew. Talked about her like she was a thing. And killed her as soon as he had something better in his sights. Made you take part, somehow. That about cover it?" Best rip the bandage off quick, or they'd be there 'til Boss started rigging for cryo, and the kid's inability to nut up and deal was dragging sandpaper over old, bad memories.

His eyes went round with surprise and not a little fear. Her nose wasn't as good as Riddick's, but she could still practically smell it rolling off him. "Yeah, he told me to cut her loose, and she didn't- she didn't want the restraints off at first. So I told her- I said he was into something else now, that it was her lucky day. That there was air and water; what else did she need? But then he shot her like she was just- _nothing_. How'd you know?"

"Let's just say there's a reason I chose _this_ crew," she replied, grimly. Her secrets weren't his to know; not even Boss knew them all. "Look, kid. I can't fucking absolve you, or whatever it is you've got in your head right now. What happened, happened. And you're gonna have to live with it for the rest of your life. But what you don't have to do? Is let it fucking define you. If you think you got it in you to hack this life? Then put your big boy panties on and put it in the rear-view. Boss won't ask you to participate in anything like that while you're on this crew; he prefers more constructive team-building exercises." Her tone was very dry. "But if you can't? Then you better get off at the next station. We got no room for deadweight that's gonna flinch every time we drop for another job."

His spine stiffened as she jackhammered the words at him; his mouth dropped open, but the blush and slumped shoulders both faded, so at least he was taking her seriously.

"Well?" She demanded, crisply.

"Yes, ma'am," Luna blurted, then grimaced. "I mean, no ma'am; I don't want to leave. I'm not qualified for much else, and there's no jobs that pay near as good back home; my family needs the money. And if I'm going to be a merc..." He gave her a lopsided, wan smile. "I guess the angels really were looking out for me, because I can't imagine finding a better crew than this one."

"Aw, shucks; that's sweet, kid." Dahl let her body language loosen up again, and gave him a hard slap to the shoulder. "C'mon, then; I'll show you where you'll be sleeping. We'll be going into cryo right after we break orbit, so you'll need to pick a slot and stow your gear. It'll be a month or so back to Lupus V."

He followed her without further protest; _such_ a puppy, but she thought he might grow on her eventually. He just needed a little more training if they were keeping him. And a good fuck: they'd have to show him the entertainment sector at the Lupus station, put a little regular tarnish on his halo.

"Is that why you didn't mind letting Riddick go?" Luna asked carefully. "Because of what he said about- only if you asked him?"

Dahl snorted. "More because he didn't kill any of ours, even when he could've. I don't know what he had against your boss; but the minute ours took over, he dealt fair." For certain values of _fair_, at least. If he hadn't been so busy playing the big bad wolf, there'd have been a lot fewer stupid mistakes on their part. But that was the whole point of the act, wasn't it? It wouldn't make her any less wary of him the next time they met; but she might be a little less inclined to think the worst.

She hadn't even punched him when he'd taken up the game again after she got him on the bunk:

_What, don't I even get to see some skin before you put those hands in my body?_

_What, is your memory faulty? You've seen my nipples and my toenails; how much more does a guy really need to get off?_

_Point to the lady. Ask me that again sometime when I don't got any extra holes in me._

_That's just the problem. You don't have **enough**._

Luna, who'd ostensibly been guarding the prisoner, hadn't been able to look either of them in the face during that exchange; he'd been guarding the aft corridor instead, ears practically steaming. The asshole really did have charisma; pity he also had a talent for pissing off every authority figure he met, and no tolerance for bullshit, or they might have ended up sharing a career. She was willing to bet his capture record would have been as legendary as his record of _escaping_ capture.

"Anyway. Here it is. We can ship five, but we had three short-timers cash out last year, and Moss and Lockspur were the only ones to join since, so you'll have some space for now. Anything marked with the shield is guild gear; if you can use it, add it to your kit. Pack the rest up; we'll sell it and send the funds to their families, though if you spot anything real personal like pictures, let me know. Postage fees out here are insane, but we should be able to courier something small. Any more questions?"

Luna's hand was back over his Bible, she noted; but the smile he offered was a lot surer of its place. "No; I think I'm good for now. Thanks."

"Don't thank me; thank the Boss," she nodded back, then headed back up front to give her report.

-x-


End file.
